Pandemic - collaborative boardgame

[Plane Sailing]

You may well have known about and played Pandemic for years, but I only heard about it last week and I've just started playing it this week, and I want to tell everyone what a great game it is!

It is a collaborative game for 2-4 players. That's right, you are not competing against each other - you are working together to try to save the world!

There are four deadly diseases which are spreading across the globe. Can your team of specialists find the cures before you run out of time - and before any single disease spreads too far - and before you have too many outbreaks.

Are you going to hoard your precious cards to attempt to find a cure, or are risk spending them to travel to hotspots and prevent a terrible outbreak and spread of disease? There are difficult choices to be made at each stage and building tension as epidemic after epidemic breaks out, stretching your resources to the limit.

There are several player roles, each with a powerful special ability - there are medic, researcher, scientist, dispatcher, operations expert, quarantine specialist and contingency planner.

If you'd like to get more details, can I point you to this issue of Wil Wheaton's TableTop, where they are playing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytK1zDPPDhw

Try it! I'm sure you'll love it!

 

[Crothian]

Great Game!

 

[Nytmare]

I actually prefer the "kids" version of Pandemic called Forbidden Island. It was made by the same designer, two years after Pandemic. Though it's not as complicated strategy-wise, I think I prefer it because the setup and game play are a lot tighter, and it still has the same kind of payoff for me.

 

[Prickly]

I actually got to play Pandemic for the first time this weekend.

Its a great game and I really really enjoy the collaborative gameplay.

I also liked the premise. Our medic kept shouting "I'm healing the world" when removing a cured disease by moving.

 

[Abbasax]

Our players usually yell "I'm Jesus!" when playing the medic.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, Pandemic is awesome. I love that game. I haven't tried the expansion or revision or the Forbidden Island game.

 

[MerricB]

Pandemic is a great game (and Forbidden Island likewise) with great mechanics and play, but it ultimately is a solo puzzle game. It's just too easy for one player who is better at analysing the situation than the others to dominate and just tell people what to do.

Thus, when I play co-operative games I prefer games like Space Alert, which has a time-limit on decisions... and all players need to make them simultaneously, so the one player dominating the table doesn't occur. You don't get left out in Space Alert.

Alternatively, Arkham Horror just makes the range of options so big (and the results so random) that your decisions aren't as key as Pandemic or Space Alert. (Though good strategy does help).

Cheers!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Turns out that we were playing the Researcher wrong in a couple of our early games. Much harder when she can only give cards regardless of city!

Still, we managed to save the world on the very last turn before cards ran out last night. Victory is sweet!

 

[MerricB]

Turns out that we were playing the Researcher wrong in a couple of our early games. Much harder when she can only give cards regardless of city!

Still, we managed to save the world on the very last turn before cards ran out last night. Victory is sweet!

It certainly is. What level of difficulty were you playing on?

Cheers!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Just the basic level - four epidemic cards. We had medic, dispatcher and operations expert in this game